Thursday, August 23, 2012

And the Killer is...

Continuing our Weird Adventures game last night, things got more serious in Westerly Manor as Rothger Croston (the lawyer) disappeared just as he was about to reveal who stood to benefit the most from the current heiress Cordelia's death. Investigation revealed a secret, magical passage behind the bookcase in the library that twisted upward in some extra-dimensional space and led to the master bedroom upstairs. There, Boris found Croston's dead body and another secret panel.

Loone and Diabolico went up to the tower and found a window that allowed one to get out on the flat roof around the skylight. Someone had used it recently, because the window seal was damp with rain. Also, there was a rain-smeared remnant of an occult circle drawn in chalk. If they needed any further proof, there was a candle left behind that reeked of extraplanar energies to Loone's acute mentalist sensitivities.

A line-up of the would-be Westerly heirs revealed only one with any chalk stains on him. Charlie Wildman had one damp knee with a smear of chalk on it. The boys were sure he was their man, but he was playing it cool and didn't admit to anything. Boris even roughed him up a bit and he still didn't talk.

However, those harsh interrogation techniques opened a door for Loone's mental powers. He discovered an ancient evil within Charlie and our heroes figured out the truth: Charlie was possessed by the spirit of his wicked, sorcerous ancestor, Curwen Westerly.

Loone and Harley Blythe apprehended the now-ranting Charlie/Curwen. That's when the Shrike made his appearance from the basement. Boris pulled out his shotgun, beloved Ivanka, and blasted the fiend. The Shrike was wounded, but not dead. Boris made sure he stayed docile by judicious application of his crowbar.

Feeling Curwen was the actual murderer and Charlie an unwitting accomplice, they tried to induce the spirit to leave. They didn't really have any methods at their disposal, until Curwen let slip that he had a laboratory in the basement: The locked room they didn't search before!

They hauled him down and restrained him while looking for some sort of malign spirit remover. Diabolico discovered another magical tunnel whose other end was movable and allowed travel to the secret passages in the house if one just thought of the location. Loone got the idea to ask it to go to the land of spirits--and it opened a portal to the gray, dreariness of the Underworld. A couple of helpful dead guys were willing to pry Curwen's spirit out of Charlie's body and wrangle the thing. The portal closed with Curwen trapped.

Croston was dead, but Cordelia made good on the payment owed "Team Victory." Boris made a public show of returning the Shrike to the sanitarium and got some positive press.